That didn't solve the problem. It is hoped that taking the benches and tables out will, especially when combined with trimming the trees back and adding more lights, something the city says is coming.

The idea, ultimately, is to make this a miserable place for miserable people, those who essentially deny use of the park to the rest of us and endanger those who work and live nearby.

This isn't the first time the city has had to take drastic action when a city park became an open-air drug market and a hangout for undesirables.

Gleason Park on California Street just south of the Crosstown Freeway was bulldozed and then fenced for years because of the troublemakers who set up shop there. Now there's a beautiful park with Spanos Elementary School on the south edge and new apartments on the north. There was even a violin music concert last week at the Gleason Park Apartments put on by children from the area.

Unfortunately, as Police Chief Eric Jones told about 200 people attending a recent presentation of the city's anti-crime Marshall Plan, a drug market has been established at Sutter and Sonora streets, about a block west of Gleason Park (one of several crime "hot spots" identified by Jones).

That tends to underscore what attendees at the Marshall Plan meeting were told: criminal "hot spots" tend to stay put over the years. But that also means they can be targeted by police.

More and more, that's what's been going on citywide in recent months. Fremont Park now is in police cross hairs too.